Proluge - Book 1 - Chapter Two

[tactlesstruth]

Chapter Two

June of 1990

John was sitting on the sofa one day when it hit him, he was possibly in love with this man. He physically jumped at the thought, the very idea disgusted him. He wasn't gay, never had been! Granted there had been unnatural longings in his youth, and he was especially bad off in his, well what had been his twenties …

Coming upon this realization John wondered if he was more or less twenty any longer. He hadn't been feeling the same as he'd been during the first few decades, but ever since he'd been kicked out of his family he'd been in survival mode. Because of this he had not had the luxury of being amorous for anyone, or even type, so of course he wasn't going to be looking. When you're constantly fighting to survive you're going to be in a constant state of feeling ill. John thought back and realized the tension and never ending unease he'd always had, seemed to wear off after he'd bought that darn Mercedes. It as around that time his whole body and even his mind ever so slightly relaxed a bit. Yet his sex drive never returned.

John looked at the T.V. and cocked his head to the side.

It made sense really he was getting older and old people didn't really have the “drive of youth” as he'd heard it called. But why didn't he become interested after he bought his car, he should have. He'd even had a good 20 years there where he very much should have been interested.

He never had been.

John mulled this over, terribly his mind dredged up how he'd been suddenly taken by his boss. He'd been sitting across from the man typing away, their desks perpetually pushed together, when he noticed how smooth and soft his skin was. For half an instant he realized how young and just hot the man was. He'd pushed it away at the time. After this his mind reeled popping up one incident after another of people he'd been ever so slightly turned on for. None of them were as strong as that one incident and women were peppered in there, but the majority of his interests were men.

John shoved it all away.

He shook his head and scooted forward leaning his elbows on his knees. He needed to focus on something else, something that mattered, not this queer shit.

So how old was he now, and really was there an age for his type of person? Did he count his age by the years or how old his body was?

John stared at the T.V. for a minute then got up, this needed tea.

One thought lead to another and by the time Carson got home the poor young student took one look at him and decided John needed a good strong drink.

In the end John decided the best thing was to just ignore it all. The answers would pop up as he lived his life and if they didn't then so be it. Thinking it over would only make things awkward so there was no use in examining it too closely.

John kept on living as he had been, trying to get his green card and make enough money under the table or on the side to pay his end of the rent. Carson let him know there was no need, he had enough money for the both of them and even if his money were to run out his parents money wouldn't.

“What!?” John chocked on his tea, “you said-”

“Yeah well.” Carson bit his lips tight stirring his own cup, “turns out they had quite a bit saked away. They were too greedy to waste it on us. Any of us.”

“You're kidding.”

“Nope!” Carson shot him a bitter grin then pressed the heel of his hand on the counter top, he turned away. “When they died we sold the house and divided it up eight ways. It didn't amount to much, but with the slight bit they had saved up for their retirement and cruises which they never got … “ Carson went still.

He stood there; distant, staring out the small kitchen window.

“Is it wrong … to want for them, wish they had that. Te' retire and enjoy, maybe be happy like they never were?”

John shifted, “I … My own parents they ...” John looked down into the delicate china in his hands, “I ahh,” he gulped shocked he was about to say this, shocked he could say this at all. Through all these years he'd never looked back, never allowed himself to examine it, much less speak of it. “I was kidnapped. … gone for ten years. … When I came back I was changed, different. … Like my brother from war. … Or that's what my Ma' said.”

John paused for a long beat, after a bit he inhaled then let the breath out, the tension rising despite it. “I knew I was different, changed. I wasn't able to live in there-the house-with them any more.” John went numb, “I had … changed.”

He could feel Carson watching him, or figured he was; John really hoped he was wrong.

He inhaled long and hard and let it out in a rush.

“When they kicked me out not 6 years later-my Dad kicked me out. They hated me. I was fighting with my Mom, my Dad. My Dad ... hated me. ...”

For a while there he'd had to face the truth, that he'd been evicted by his own family and was homeless. That he wasn't going to be able to crawl back to them, even if he was dying.

John's world began to blur all white and cold.

He'd never told anyone this before, never even faced it, looked at it.

Never re-lived it, which was what he was doing now.

The next thing he knew something was shoved into his hand.

“Here. Drink.”

When he started blubbering he was scooped up, thankfully he didn't go further, even that much was too much.

In the end John let Carson know that really, he wanted his own family to be well off and wished that he could have checked up on them. He never got to see his parents again, never got to know what happened to them. He figured they never moved off the farm since there was nothing to be seen nor heard of them from that point on. His siblings, he tried to find out what he could, he'd check the papers every chance he got. Here and there through the years he caught wind of a few of them.

A wedding or two, a few deaths, one or two honours.

Not much though.

For the most part his family disappeared, and really, “I must've disappeared for them too.” John gasped his shaking breath calming now, “but I still loved them.”

John wiped his face, “and I still wanted them to be well and do good.” John took a breath wiping his face, “they put up with me for as long as they could. … They couldn't do anything for me.”

It was some time after this that John started to get bothered by the little things. Carson was what John considered a friendly guy, always patting him on the back or sitting close, their feet knocking together. Now though Carson was always softly caressing him, or sitting so close that their sides were constantly pressed together. John figured it was Carson being over protective because every time John looked up Carson was quick to hide a worried look on his face. John couldn't figure out why he was doing this but he really wished Carson would stop.

Things went on as unusual and eventually Carson eased off in his queerness. Though now instead of the college student going out on most nights, or dragging John out to meet yet another group of new mates (when he wasn't studying) Carson spent his time at home. It was a bit claustrophobic at first and felt like being tied down but John made himself adjust to it quickly. Before long John and Carson were always together, John even helping the guy study.

By 1991 they had fallen into a pattern.

Depending on his classes Carson would usually take breakfast or lunch with John and at night they'd always sit on the couch watching Dr. Owl or some such T.V. show. Apparently in Britain there was no stigmatism attached to anything sci. fi. it was just another form of entertainment.

John was grateful for this and allowed himself to indulge to his hearts content.

Though if anyone asked him his favourites were the classics and old dusty cowboy tales. Stories of brave, strong and silent men rambling around out on the open range. If anyone were to quote him and not know him personally they'd immediately say he was the Yank with the far too great like for Smoking Gun.

Privately, sitting on the couch next to his room mate John would get lost in the ecstasy of anything and everything out of this world. If it involved an alien he was more then apt to already be half way through watching or reading it.

Most nights after some of their favourite shows John and Carson would ramble on out to the back yard and watch the stars as best they could.

That was another guilty pleasure of his, aliens.

John figured he believed in them because he had been cast out of his own family many decades before. Maybe it was because of feeling like an outsider no matter where he lived, or his need for a family again. His wish for someone to constantly be watching out for him, giving him the love and guidance he lost when he was tossed out. Maybe it was because of something else entirely.

Whatever it was the nights he spent in the accompaniment of his friend filled John with a solid wholeness he'd never been allowed before. Together they'd sit, watching shows about all knowing and saviour type, ethereal beings. Afterwards they'd go out into the backyard and look for extraterrestrial objects in the sky through their second hand telescope.

It was on these nights, which were most nights, that John would have a deep cold sink into his soul. It wouldn't pop up until he looked at Carson and the man would brush against him his smile broadening into a loving childish grin.

It's said that the most terrifying thing is that which we cannot see, cannot name nor measure. If we can't quantify nor even describe that which is bothering us the unlabelled thing can become an entanglement, a spiders web, a noose even.

It wasn't long before John was waking up strangled in his own sheets, his bed soaked through, his body so wet it was as if someone had left him out in the rain.

On those nights which became more and more frequent he'd find himself shivering over a cup of tea in the kitchen downstairs, his feet bare and pained by the cold wooden floor.

It was in these hours that his mind tried to bring up all the close touches, soft caresses, and footsie that the man he was living with had been doing.

John would stuff it away stating Carson was not some god damned pervert and demand that his mind stop thinking such oddities. It was drawing conclusions that didn't exist, all the conspiracy theory T.V. shows getting to him. Yet, now that he had seen it his mind kept spitting out connections it never would have. It was as if John's brain was some damn super computer spitting out answers to questions he'd never asked.

At first he was able to beat down, shove away, even what felt like physically grind to a halt the gears in his mind.

After a good month and a half of this he started to realize his own will power was not enough, but he'd never admit it.

Soon John found that adding a bit of good strong booze to his cup was the only way to get his mind to obey his will. And soon after that he was readily adding a good half a cup of alcohol to his last bit of tea for the night.

This worked for a while till Carson finally called him out on it. John grumbled at the man to leave it alone and thankfully Carson did.

Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was the constant darkness in the corner that John refused to face. Whatever it was not five months after his sudden realization that Carson might be gay did he start to wake up with a growling gnawing need in the pit of his gut.

It felt as though his stomach was being eaten, some invisible claw grabbing his very torso in a fist and twisting. John would wake up most nights gasping, his guts churning, the very digestive juices screaming out for food. It was in these wee hours at two or three a.m. that the darkness would whine pleading with him to take what he was offered. That Carson was infact a sicko, a deviant like him and he should welcome it! That the man would openly allow John to draw from him. Then John's mind would kick in and point out that this was more then likely a survival mechanism. That it had been proven by the Kinsey Scales that it was normal to be bi, for survival in a group where one is cared for is far higher and greater then if one were lonely and alone, vulnerable. That love had a great potential for being used to ones benefit, and it would allow you, John especially, to live for that much longer.

It was the night that his mind suggested that he just slip into Carson's room, draw just enough to sooth and sneak away again that he finally did something about it.